Grace to you and peace!
In 1954, Martin Luther Lutheran Church began
spreading that good news of grace and peace in Lee's Summit, Missouri. In 2008,
MLLC finds itself in the midst of a transition from one pastor to another -- a
transition that I am helping to get started and which will continue under Pastor
Merle Brockoff when he arrives in July.
Let me tell you a bit about
myself. I grew up in St. Louis and southern Illinois, and attended both college
and seminary in Chicago. I returned to the St. Louis area in 1989 to serve my
first parish as an ordained pastor, and in 1992 served as the interim campus
pastor at the Lutheran Campus Ministry at the University of Kansas, followed by
a regular call to a parish in Kansas City. In 1996, I moved to Alameda,
California in order to pursue a Ph.D. in "Worship, the Arts, and Proclamation"
at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. My dissertation was titled "Let
All God's People Say 'Amen!': A Multigenerational Understanding of Rite,
Hymnody, and Preaching." Along the way, I served on the hymn editorial committee
for Evangelical Lutheran Worship, the new ELCA hymnal.
God's grace
is a gift for people of all ages, and this is clearly what one finds at Martin
Luther Lutheran Church. On any given Sunday, you will see infants and toddlers,
wise old elders, and almost every age in between, all rejoicing in the many
gifts God has given to them. If you are in the area, whether you are a Christian
or someone who is curious about the Christian faith, please join us for worship
on Sunday mornings, because these gifts of God's grace and peace belong to
you!
Pastor Peter Rehwaldt